


The Worry and The Realisation

by Thunderrrstruck



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Poisoning, Emergency room, F/M, Hospitals, Underage Drinking, Whumptober 2020, high school parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderrrstruck/pseuds/Thunderrrstruck
Summary: Everything seems fine, until Karen gets a call that her daughter is in the ER.
Relationships: Iris Vick & Karen Vick, Iris Vick & Richard Vick, Karen Vick/Richard Vick
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Whumptober





	The Worry and The Realisation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 29 of Whumptober2020.  
> Prompt: Emergency Room.  
> Warnings: Alcohol abuse/poisoning, hospitalisation, underage drinking.
> 
> A/N: Reread only once through, as per usual of me, haha. Forgive any clunky grammar and syntax, pls. :P

A full day of work had Karen on the brink of a headache, but it was nothing a meal and a shower couldn’t fix. By the time the clock struck ten, she was descending the steps in casual, around-the-house attire. Richard was where she left him downstairs, hunched over the dining room table, papers scattered across the polished mahogany.

“Tough case?” Karen asked, taking up position behind her husband. She placed her hands on his shoulders and began digging circles into the muscles with her thumbs.

Richard sat back against the wooden slats of his chair and scratched through his hair with the back of his pen. “Yeah,” he grunted. “Too much to consider in one day, yet here I am.”

“As long as you don’t stay up the entire night,” she said, “ _again_.”

“Might have to.”

“Did you forget about the _last_ time you tried to pull that stunt?” Karen tried for a scold, but her tone was betrayed by an eye roll and soft chuckle. The recollection of that nigh-accident had turned to comedy over the five years since. She stopped massaging long enough to glance down at him. He tilted his head up, meeting her gaze.

“I remember getting even from the time you almost ran _me_ over in the driveway,” he replied, rising from the seat. He stepped around and shoved it, without looking, back underneath the table.

“You’re bedtime is eleven-thirty, end of discussion.”

“Twelve-thirty?”

“Twelve.”

“Deal, if we both observe it.”

“ _Fine_.”

Placing a hand on the side of her neck, Richard drew himself in to drop a quick kiss on her temple. As he retracted, his eyes lit up, and he changed the subject with, “By the way, Iris called an hour ago. She’s still at Maggie’s.”

Karen ignored the instinctual worry which begged to present itself. “Everything’s fine?”

“She wanted to sleep over, and since tomorrow’s Saturday, I let her.”

A slow stream of breath deflated any tension she’d built up. Being a police chief and a mother made her exceptionally aware of how things could go wrong, how one choice can make or break a life. One look at her husband, at the subtle indentation between his brows, and she knew that despite being on the finishing end of the legal system, he felt something similar.

“Maggie’s a good kid, right?”

“Not so much a blemish on her record.” Unlike the shoplifting clique Karen learned of post the fiasco on Alcatraz.

A ringtone blared from the other room. Recognising it as hers, Karen excused herself from the room and, reluctantly, Richard’s arms to retrieve it. She rarely received calls this late, unless one of her detectives had uncovered a promising and urgent lead. Skepticism creasing her brow into a V, she answered with the typical greeting: “Chief Vick.”

The other side garbled out words in a gentle tone. Emotionless, impersonal apologies. The smile melted off her face. Her teeth grit together, her lips pressed into a line. She dropped the phone to her shoulder, receiver face down, and held her eyes closed. 

Karen locked brown eyes with Richard’s. In two seconds, he knew, too.

Although her voice was quiet, it shivered with all the resonance of a dark caver.

“We need to go.”

—

They pulled into the parking lot exactly twenty-three minutes post call. Karen wasted no time scrambling out of the driver’s seat. She burst through the hospital door and hustle through faceless bodies to the receptionist’s desk. Hot on her heels was Richard.

“Where is she?” she demanded the desk nurse straight away. “Where’s my daughter, where’s Iris?”

The nurse began speaking, but he was much too slow for Karen’s needs. Her jaw set itself firmly like a last defence against exploding on the man. She felt Richard’s hand come to rest on her back, yet another defence against _losing her mind_. 

Eventually, without even a flash of her badge, another doctor steered them down a set of hallways twists before landing them outside the ER waiting room. Karen’s teeth dug deeper into her bottom lip the longer she was briefed about the situation. She flitted her eyes to the door over the doctor’s shoulder. _But you can’t see her_ , she was told, _not yet_. ‘Like Hell,’ Karen wished to spat, but again, she kept her tongue, this time if only due to the shock replacing the blood in her veins.

They found a pair of empty chairs in the closest to the hallway and heaved down. Karen ran a hand through her hair.

“ _Drinking_ , parties,” she muttered to herself.

Richard shook his head in his hands, leaning to the edge of his seat. 

“And I just _let_ her,” Richard finished. Hearing that, Karen straightened in her seat. “I didn’t think anything of it!”

“Oh, no, honey, this isn’t your fault,” said Karen and rolled a hand over one of his. “You couldn’t have known.”

A silence passed over them, each too absorbed in their distraught thoughts to offer any further comfort. The touch would have to do.

Karen leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder and waited for the doctor to find them and tell them how Iris would be okay. All she had to do was white-knuckle the reigns of hope a little longer.


End file.
